I changed my mind about Dark Souls being my favourite game. Nothing has ever retained a sense of pure epicness and fun to this extent like BFME has. Dark Souls and KR may have been more carefully designed, and I like that the effort paid off, but EA really struck a diamond mine (or some meth) when they made this game, because it is a true gem. That feeling of clashing your massive army against another, filled with these diverse people and creatures that Tolkien crafted for us. This is a masterpiece of a game.

Kingmaker: "What do you think of Dwarven Battlewagons?"

Answer: They're balanced, because in some cases they're super OP, but in others, they get outclassed.

I love beefing them up with Men of Dale, because they can snipe the pikemen that would otherwise prevent them from charging, and then run into the centre of an army, crushing everything in sight. The AI takes forever to upgrade its units, so I never have to worry about anyone surviving the charge.

Just information for anyone interested in the game, they don't make copies of the game anymore, but you should be able to get a copy relatively cheaply on eBay or a similar online auction site. Don't use Amazon. They have 1 fresh copy with a price tag of $400.

Helm's Deep is my favourite map, but there's a glitch where enemies can move through the gate and get behind it physically, but in-game are still required to break it down to move any further.

That was King Dain getting 2-shotted by Sauron, because Sauron is the single strongest thing in the entire game. Also, the Witch King made a caMel just as Dain died. I love the Orc announcer, too. He's so over the top.

Just gonna put this out there, but, Company of Heroes with the Eastern Front mod is also a supergood game to play. Even better than BFME2, in my opinion, and that's saying a lot, because BFME2 was superb fun.

Also, Elves ftw. To be honest, I find them sort of weak compared to, say, the Dwarves, but whatever-whatever Elves ftw.

6. Goblins - Goblins train too slowly for their cost and statistical weakness. Poison is only useful with the archers. Cavalry is really hard to get early, and other useful unit types like pikemen are super expensive. It would work better if there were quickly-spawning goblin units of each type, and then trolls and spider riders were used as late-game units who cost even more but were even stronger. Only way to win is by rushing Shelob.5. Isengard - Units are more expensive than the Dwarves but weaker, and mines were a cool idea that never came into fruition because it's so hard to use them. They have cooler heroes than the Goblins, like Lurtz and Saruman, so that pushes them higher on the list.4. Elves - Just as Isengard, the units are too expensive. However, summoning Eagles and using such a wide variety of heroes is fun. They have cool spells, and those Silverthorn Arrows are so awesome when you get a full battalion of archers. I just wish that their melee units were better.3. Gondor - Gandalf.2. Dwarves - All of their heroes are great, even if Gloin refuses to use his first skill on multiple units, and their troops themselves are awesome. Guardians can counter archers by charging, who were built to counter melee units in the first place, and while they lack cavalry, the Battlewagons more than make up for it. I love that you can add a pair of units or some equipment to the back of it, and while they could have gone much farther with the idea, I think they're powerful enough with 1 upgrade. Too bad Men of Dale are so much better than axethrowers.1. Mordor - I know Mordor isn't better than the Dwarves in terms of power, but I absolutely adore their heroes. The fact that you can have multiple of the same hero, while hard to manage, was really cool to me, and the single heroes like Mouth of Sauron and Witch-King are so fun. ESPECIALLY the Witch-King. He has to be the most OP purchasable hero in the game, even more than Gandalf. Plus, getting an army of attack trolls and charging right through the enemy's defences is so awesome with the Mordor music playing, and that moment when you finally get the Balrog as a power... The atmosphere of Mordor and diversity of units makes it my favourite.

What about you? I'm sure that the different versions will surely give us both valid reasons for liking a faction over the other.

While I have never played this game, my love for Middle Earth draws me in. I shall have to investigate it further, then likely play it. You have mentioned it in the past, yet I didn't believe it so serious an enjoyment; I apparently was mistaken.

The Kingmaker wrote:What faction do you think is represented best from the books/movies?

Have you heard of the Edain Mod?

I have little knowledge of the books, since my mom doesn't want me to read them due to how tiny the font is. From the movies, the Uruk Hai seem closest, as you even get to use the mines from that epic Helm's Deep scene. Elves got little integration in the LOTR series, but the Hobbit series has more of the Elves and Dwarves, and having not seen all the movies, I can't speak for them.

Edain Mod looks so awesome. It and the hero creation are the 2 reasons why I'm repurchasing the game for PC. Like KR, I'd gladly pay excess money for the most enjoyment out of the game as possible. However, I would probably play the game without the mod for the first couple of days, maybe a week, just to get the hang of the game on the new platform. Then, I can enjoy the separate Gondor and Rohan factions.

xstargaming wrote:While I have never played this game, my love for Middle Earth draws me in. I shall have to investigate it further, then likely play it. You have mentioned it in the past, yet I didn't believe it so serious an enjoyment; I apparently was mistaken.

One thing about this game that stands out is that it's units aren't singular or in small groups. You train entire battalions, with 15 soldiers in a regular legion and 20 in a Goblin or Orc legion, as those units are weaker. Area attacks thus become more balanced, as you almost never want to waste an AOE ability on enemy heroes, but they're invaluable at taking out multiple legions of troops. This does come with one problem, which is difficult to pull off, but still possible, and it's that getting units to level 2 and above allows them to revive each unit in a battalion one by one, and you can exceed your command point limit quote easily this way, as well as dropping in frame rate. Even the Edain Mod gets to 8 or 7, but you have to really push it with hordes of Goblins for that to happen.

Elves are still cooler, though. To be completely honest, however, I probably enjoyed Gondor the most, even though they weren't represented well.

With all honesty, Elven infantry in BFME2 should be way, way, way stronger. They were total beasts in the books, onpar with the Dwarves in individual strength. Gondor's Men, however, were overly confident, heavily complacent, and too focused on ceremonial events than actual training. A single Elf should be able to taken on waves of them.

So far, out of every unit in the game, Mumakil are the only unit types that you only need 1 of to kill Gimli, excluding some heroes.

To balance it, Elves should have better stats so that they can actually survive encounters and make use of their healing, and Dwarves should have less units in a battalion to compensate for their pure strength. Where would you rank the evil factions, JB? Also, what are your favourite built-in custom heroes? Mine is Thrugg because of his Superior Firebomb skill.

Also, I don't know if anyone of you are aware of this because Mordor AI never buys the Witch King, but there's a hidden power that Eowyn has against him. If you send them into melee with each other, WK can only deal fractions of his normal damage, and Eowyn does extra damage to him, including her spear throw.

NEVER make a troll custom hero. No area attack, nothing. Just slower than your regular goblin custom hero who 1-hits everything anyway.

Personally elves have it hard in the game, they dont have enough troops (as in variation) to be interesting, and their hero creator is bland. Let's see, do I want archer specialisaion (so at level 1 my hero can 2 hit trolls) or to summon a bunch of crows that last 3 seconds and die from enemy arrows regardless.

The Kingmaker wrote:You didn't test that youself did you? You just saw Ruuddevil, hmm?

How else would I get a perfect scenario like that?

The Kingmaker wrote:NEVER make a troll custom hero. No area attack, nothing. Just slower than your regular goblin custom hero who 1-hits everything anyway.

The game treats them like they're the strongest units possible for some reason. Morwen, the starter hero, is probably the most powerful, as her abilities counter high health, high range, high speed, high damage, and high numbers respectively. Mighty Spear Throw one shots the majority of heroes, and it looks so cool when I use it on a Fellbeast with full health. However, Thrugg is still better, because his firebomb is basically the damage and range of Word of Power without the 10-minute cooldown.

The Kingmaker wrote:Personally elves have it hard in the game, they dont have enough troops (as in variation) to be interesting, and their hero creator is bland. Let's see, do I want archer specialisaion (so at level 1 my hero can 2 hit trolls) or to summon a bunch of crows that last 3 seconds and die from enemy arrows regardless.

Archers are the only units with 2 different classes in the Elven Army, and every other faction (except Isengard) has that, as well, so they've got nothing. Ents would be cooler if there were varieties of Ents to train in the Ent Moot. Same applies to Rivendell Lancers, who are the only units trained at their building. At least the Dwarves had more upgrades and powers for their units.

Xbox doesn't get hero creation, so I can only use the pre-made custom heroes. I so badly wanted to make a Mage hero like Gandalf or Saruman, and still do.

That's right. I have 5,493 commands points of Orcs and counting. Very slowly counting, as my frame rate has dropped to 0.0625 (one frame every 16 seconds) and it's so hard to select anything. Only some of them are actually battalions. Other are actually just lone Orcs, adding on only 3 more command points.

I got battalions of Orcs and bombarded them with Catapults, leaving only 1 unit left. I did this until I had 314 lone Orcs, totaling to 942 command points, and bought Banner Carriers for them. If you don't know, that brings them to Lvl 2, which allows them to respawn units in their battalion until they get 20 units for a total of 60 command points. Not all of my units are upgraded with carriers, so I haven't reached the fullest potential of this, but I can't buy any more banner carriers yet. It isn't possible to select all of my army and then upgrade the Orcs with the banners, though I don't know why. I already upgrading a lot of them and I have 750,000 resources.

The game completely crashed, so I'll never get to see the largest amount of Orcs possible in the game.

At least I got that picture. Imagine when Ruuddevil sees it and gets inspired for another VS video with 6,000 Orcs. (I recommend 6,000 Orcs vs 20 Attack Trolls)

I don't know what anything about the Ring that you wrote has to do with my Orc overload, but I learned something about Bombadil. Give it to Gandalf. So what if it corrupts him? He is under your command ultimately.